Girls'  Night  Out

			     by  Vickie  Tern

1.


"So, I see she did talk you into it!  My God, look at you!  You're
gorgeous!"

There at the door was Pearl, my wife's best friend, looking at me as I
figured she would when she saw me, amused but also contemptuous.  She
stepped back and gave me that same relentless look of appraisal women
use on themselves when they look into mirrors.  Then she said, "Not
bad!  Not too bad!  But how in the world did she get you to do it?"

I was embarrassed, but tried to hide it.  So I looked Pearl over
equally deliberately.  What I saw was the usual bright and brassy
middle aged woman, dressed up for a big night out on the town.  Packed
into a green silk dress much too short for her, I thought.  Matching
strappy high heels and a clutch purse.  Lacy black stockings.  Pinned
somewhere back of her blonde curls was some kind of small felt hat with
a wisp of black veil.  So she was green and black and lacy and sassy,
and busy making me feel uncomfortable.

"C'mon in, Pearl," I said.  "Bea's almost ready.  You look good too,
you really do!"

I was sincere -- for Pearl, she looked terrific.  But especially I
wanted to steer our conversation into compliments right away.  I
couldn't take her usual mockery, her sardonic put-downs.  Not dressed
the way I was when I came to the door.  I was trying not to be too
self-conscious about it.  I wanted to be a good sport for this one
night, to play it straight.  To be a proper lady, one of the girls, the
way I'd promised Bea.  But with Pearl nothing ever comes easy.

She overreacted like a Disney cartoon character.  Her eyes flicked over
my coiffure and then down my dress, Bea's choice for me for the
evening, a little basic black with satin trim, and a cute peplum to
hide my lack of hips, and a wide satin-trimmed collar to cover my
now-noticeable breasts.  Then she eyeballed my legs -- in plain sheer
black stockings, nothing fancy -- and my high heeled black pumps.
"Wow!" she said, wiping an imaginary haze from in front of her eyes.
Her skirt flipped and she wriggled her hips, then planted her hands on
them.  "Hoo boy!" she said.  "Aren't you something!" She squared her
body and then gave me her ultimate once-over.  I'd seen it before.
Insolent and amused.  Absolutely intimidating.  In that posture she
looked like a tart naming her price, take it or leave it, but managed
to imply that I was the tart.  "Henry, I don't know what to say.
You're such a stunner!  You'll knock 'em dead!  How can you stand
yourself?"

Her irony was too heavy, and I began to wilt.  But Pearl sensed it and
immediately reversed field.  She said, "No, really, I mean it!  I'm
impressed!  That makeover is fabulous!  You're really convincing!  They
must have spent the whole day working on you!"

"Thanks," I said, "If that was a compliment.  Come in and sit down."

She stepped into the hallway like a dainty horse imprinting the ground,
glanced at me again, and then let her high heels throw her hips into a
seductive swish as she proceeded ahead of me into the living room.  I
got her message.  I had to admit it, I couldn't have looked more
swishy.  "Yes," she said, "It was a compliment.  A pretty girl should
learn to accept compliments graciously.  Just dimple, and curtsy, and
say 'Thank you.'  You know, when a girl spends hours or days getting
ready for a big date, she should appreciate it when her efforts are
noticed."

"Bea told me you'd agreed to be one of the girls tonight, but I just
didn't believe her." Pearl went on.  She sat down, and carefully
arranged her legs on our living room couch, skirt smooth, arms draped
possessively across the back cushions, at her ease.  "Frankly, Henry, I
didn't think you had the guts.  No offense.  But how many men do you
know would do this for their wives?"

I followed Pearl into the living room, rocking a bit on my own high
heels, and stood looking down at her.  She arched her neck up and said,
"Get me a drink, would you, Honey?  I'd better start calling you
'Honey' I think, not 'Henry.'  A 'Henry' who looks the way you do will
start people talking, and I'm not sure you'd want to hear what they
were saying."

"Or am I looking at 'Henrietta,' Henry's longtime girly other self?
Have I at last found out your guilty secret?  Have you always liked
dressing up in frilly things?  Do you really want to be a girl?  Have a
stiff drink yourself, hon.  You're going to need it before tonight's
through!"

I took her advice, belted down a quick one, poured Pearl her usual
whiskey on rocks and myself another, handed it to her, then sat down
across from her.  I clasped my drink in my lap with both hands, and
crossed my ankles primly, just as Bea had shown me.  Shoulders back,
bust out, chin high, shake my curls to get her attention, then speak in
a high but sweet voice, if I could manage it.

"Don't, Pearl," I said.  There was just a touch of pleading in my
voice, for Pearl usually a signal to lunge in for the kill.  I had
better be more aggressive.  "You know perfectly well that Bea has been
getting me ready for tonight for months.  In fact, what with her
planning and shopping and rehearsing me, she's had very little else on
her mind for some time.  I've never seen her like this, not in all our
twenty years of marriage.  She's been so happy and busy.  So don't mock
me, because when you do, you're mocking Bea.  And that's not friendly."
My voice quavered just a little.  Maybe it was pitched too high.

"All right, Honey," Pearl said, her voice softened but not subdued.
"I'll be gentle.  You're one of the girls tonight, and that's that.
Don't cry, you'll ruin your beautiful eyes." This time she looked at my
face seriously.  "They really are beautiful, in a way.  Who would have
thought it?"

I felt a little mollified.  "Well, Bea always did.  Even before I was
involved in this."

Pearl's look was unwavering.  "All right, Bea thinks you're beautiful.
But tell me, my Honey, my lamb led to the slaughter.  Whatever
possessed you?  Why are you involved, as you see it?  I know, but I'm
curious what you know.  Tell me what you think is going on."

Pearl didn't seem to be taking this night seriously enough, so I opened
up.  It was a chance for me to practice my voice some more, anyhow.

"You know full well how come I'm involved.  Bea's had her heart set on
tonight since last year.  You know that.  In fact, it was your own idea
originally.  You remember, Bea's thirty-ninth birthday?  How it hit
her?  Like a house collapsing on her?  All that weeping, she was
getting old and ugly, life was passing her by.  Every day more
depressed, popping more pills, then feeling even more miserable.  Some
days she didn't even bother to get dressed, and I was really worried.
Then when I'd try to talk to her, to cheer her up, she'd just look at
me and withdraw even further, run into the bedroom or the bathroom and
then cry her heart out."

"I remember that time," Pearl said, looking me levelly in the eyes.
"It was exactly a year ago."

"So I offered to organize a big party for her to help her celebrate her
fortieth when it came around.  Invite everyone we knew.  Well, that was
certainly a mistake!  She absolutely forbade it!  She ran into the
bedroom and slammed the door, and then she really started wailing!  I
mean loud, agonized, despairing, just terrible!  I felt awful!  I still
don't understand it."

"I know about that time too," Pearl said, still looking at me steadily,
and taking little sips from her glass.  I remembered to do the same --
sips, not swallows, it's much more ladylike, Bea had told me.  It felt
more delicate.  I wondered if my lipstick was smeared.  "You missed the
point, Honey dear!," Pearl went on.  "A forty year old woman doesn't
feel like celebrating.  It isn't like a man turning forty."

She set her glass down.  "Look!  A forty year old man is just coming
into his prime, even if he isn't quite the stud he was at twenty.  He
still believes that 'You aren't getting older, just better' crap.
Well, if he's any good at business he's starting to get into heavy
money just about then.  All those years of hard work begin to pay off.
His kids are gone, or they don't need him, so he's free of his family.
But his wife is no longer a bombshell, if she ever was one.  So when a
man turns forty he often decides he deserves better from life.  And for
once he can afford it.  So he begins screwing around.  Or, he dumps his
wife of twenty years in order to award himself a trophy wife.  Isn't
that right?"

In fact, that's just what Pearl's husband had done.  He'd left her
well-fixed enough, payment for their years of struggle together, and
had gone off to do the Palm Beach and Palm Springs circuits with a new
slim long-haired Princess of a wife, calling his broker now and then to
ask how fast the money was coming in.

I was forty last year, and I have to admit it now, I was thinking about
doing the same thing.  Life with Bea had gotten really dull.  The sex
was as predictable and boring as her cooking, and she seemed to
approach both the same way.  We shared lots of interests, but there was
nothing new to explore.  Evenings, she read her romantic novels and I
watched television.  But I still cared for her, in a way, and I didn't
want to hurt her, so I never said anything about it.  I wondered if Bea
had sensed something anyhow, and had mentioned it to Pearl.

"Well," Pearl went on, "With a woman turning forty it's different.
She's nearly past it.  Her kids are gone or don't need her.  Raising
kids has been her life, and now it's over.  She finds it's harder to
stay in shape, and she lets herself go a little.  Her dresses don't fit
her any more, so she spends more of her husband's money to buy more of
them, and they still don't fit just right.  She logs more time at the
beauty parlor.  Her husband logs more time at the office, and less with
her.  There're still things she hasn't yet done with her life, and she
knows time is running out, and she knows she's beginning to forget what
those things were.  That's why Bea didn't want your party.  I'm sure
she told you that right off when you proposed it to her.  There's
nothing to celebrate when a woman turns forty."

"She did say that," I said.  "I thought she was just depressed."

Pearl looked steadily at me again, and then took another sip.

I went on.  "But I really am grateful to you and Kay.  When the two of
you cooked up these plans for tonight, her mood changed.  Almost
immediately!  It was miraculous!  I still don't understand it.  My idea
for a birthday bash depressed her, but yours gave her a new lease on
life!  I'd never have guessed it, that what she really wanted was an
intimate night out on the town with just her two dearest friends.  A
fabulous girls' night out.  Something she'd never done before.  But
that was what she wanted!  Immediately she started humming around the
house, telephoning and planning and talking and preparing.  Weeks spent
shopping for the very outfit she's putting on right now.  All of today
spent in the beauty parlor, sitting next to me the whole time, getting
her hair and face and hands and nails and body worked over by any
number of the women there."

"Anyhow, for months she's been so excited!  I'm not sure why.  What
does she expect?  Dinner, a show, some drinks afterward, and talk, lots
of hot gossip she's never heard, she says.  Do things she hasn't done
for years, she says, maybe never done.  Bea said that you planned to
stay up till morning, the three of you, making girl talk, telling each
other racy stories, doing girl things, away from husbands or other such
depressing people.  If she liked the way it worked out, she said, then
she'd do the same things with you girls more often.  They'd become her
things too.  And that's what cheered her up!  I suppose, for Bea it's a
change.  We don't go out much together any more, hardly at all.  Not
for years.  I'm pretty much satisfied to watch television."

"So I've heard," Pearl said.  "Well, you've got the drift of it.
Turning forty is a serious thing for a woman.  Bea wanted to know how
we've handled it, me and Kay.  What we've really been doing since the
big four oh.  You're right.  A year ago she was way down, and you
weren't the only person worried about her.  So we told her that on her
fortieth birthday, tonight, we'd show her that life begins at forty.
We'd tell her all our secrets."

"I'm forty-two now, you know.  That rat of a husband of mine left me
four years ago.  Well, for a year I mourned like a schoolgirl, which is
what I still was despite everything, I suppose.  Then for another year
I thought about the rest of my life, how to take charge of it.  Well,
since then I've been doing OK. Got me a job to keep busy, started to
meet new people -- you don't know the half of it.  So I've got lots of
good advice to give Bea.  I've given her lots already."

"Kay too.  Kay told her some things right off that surprised even me,
about that husband she still lives with.  That Tomcat stud, what's his
name, Steve.  I've known for years that he's been sticking his prick
into anything in skirts the way other people shake hands.  But I didn't
know he went for anything in pants too.  He swings both ways.  Did you
know that?  The man is an animal."

I didn't know that.  I'd never met him, but he was a legend around
town.  I'd heard about his women.  We were all maybe a little jealous.
That may be why wives and ex-wives always seemed to be so protective of
Kay, always inviting her to parties and dinners and sleepovers when her
husband was out of town.  But he was bisexual?  That I hadn't known!
"Why does Kay stay with him?" I asked.  "She's a doctor.  She's got her
own practice.  She's been our family doctor for years, and she's a good
one.  Bea trusts her.  Kay doesn't need Steve."

"You really are an innocent!" Pearl said.  "Because Kay's got her own
men too.  And her own women.  They swing together.  They're swingers.
That's how they first met, at some swingers' convention, from what I
hear." Pearl leaned forward.  "But Honeybuns, you haven't told me yet
how Bea talked you into joining us for this fabulous night.  To do
whatever we do.  Especially looking the way you do, like one of the ...
uh...  girls.  What happened?  Does Bea have something on you?  Did she
catch you slipping into her little silky nothings, and then shame you
into wearing more of them?  Do you have your own panty collection?  Are
you also a secret swinger?" Pearl lifted her face toward me, waiting
for some dishy confessions.

"Well..." I began.  But Pearl was on a roll!

"And how'd she get you into that beauty salon?  Marge did a fabulous
job, really, Honey!  Those are long fingernails, longer than mine!  And
that is a perm they gave you, isn't it?  I suppose it really took guts!
Or was it blackmail, or a bribe?  Though I must say, you do look
terrific.  You look ...well, feminine.  I don't think there's any doubt
you'll pass."

"You know, don't you, that this night has cost you your manhood, as far
as I'm concerned, and probably Kay.  Maybe even Bea.  I don't know how
feminized you are inside, but you are certainly emasculated up front.
In my eyes certainly.  That's quite a sacrifice!  You must have known
that would happen.  So why did you do it?  We are never again going to
be able to think of you as Bea's dullard husband!  You're just too
cute-looking!  Now we'll spend all our time thinking about fixing you
up with cute guys!  Maybe even other cute guys in skirts!  How in the
world did Bea ever get you to agree to this?"

Finally, Pearl leaned back, looking at me cooly.  She'd spoken her
piece.  She handed me her empty glass, and gestured toward mine, and
pointed to the bar.  I stood up.

"Pearl, the way Bea did it was, she asked me, and that's all there was
to it," I said, a little too grandly.  Pearl had finallly gotten to me.

And then Bea's voice came from the doorway.  "That's right, I asked
him!" Suddenly, there was Bea.  "I decided early on that I wanted Henry
with me tonight, but not as Henry.  And that's why he's here.  I have
my own reasons, Pearl."

We both turned to look at her.  Bea had really gotten herself ready for
this special girls' night out, there was no doubt about it!  She looked
awesome!  My God, what a costume!  Short tight black leather miniskirt,
and thigh-high boots with incredibly long, thin spike heels.  A short
stretch of exposed thigh, between her boot tops and her skirt, encased
in black nylon.  Those thighs looked like dark tubes, inviolable,
strong enough to crush any man who dared put his head between them.  A
black silk blouse thrust forward by bare, jutting nipples, apparently
she wore no bra, and then it flowed down and over her arms to be
gathered at her wrists, and to billow down to her waist.  A collar of
red necklaces surrounding her neck like chain mail, and large red drop
earrings dangling under her black hair, which was teased way up around
her head as big as I could ever imagine it.  Eyes outlined in black,
and a slash of red across her mouth.  Absolutely sensational!

I swallowed hard, and almost sat down again.  Next to Bea I was a
sweet, shy wallflower, in my pretty black cocktail dress.  If there
were any feelings of manhood left in me, that I was a guy wearing a
skirt because his wife had asked him to, they were gone.  There could
be no men in the vicinity of Bea's outfit.  Only varying kinds of
submissives, until she gave one of them permission to try to service
her like a man, if he could.  I suddenly felt utterly helpless.  I
tried to compliment Bea, but my hands only waved in the air, and
nothing came out of my throat but some high-pitched squeals.  She saw
at once what she had done to me, and smiled delighted.  Her eyes
sparkled.

"My God, Bea," said Pearl.  "Talk about taking charge of your own life
starting tonight!"

"That's what I'm doing, Pearl."

Then she turned to me, still standing and staring anxiously at her.
"Don't worry, dear, this isn't for you.  It's partly for me, and partly
to help me keep some other people in line tonight, maybe.  You'll do
only what you want to do, no matter what I may ask you to do.  I
wouldn't want it any other way.  Did I tell you upstairs that you look
just lovely?  Really, that dress is adorable!  I knew that satin collar
would be flattering once your breasts were large enough to hold it away
from your body a teeny bit."

And Bea came over to me, and we held each other's arms gently for a
moment, and we pressed our cheeks together, so as not to smudge our
makeup or wrinkle our dresses, and then we looked at each other
silently for another moment.  It was a kiss, woman to woman.  I don't
know why, but it felt heavenly.  I felt a sudden surge of love for her!
And at the same time, I felt serene, so wonderfully at peace with
myself.  "Whatever you do tonight," she said to me in a low voice, "Is
for me.  I want you to know that.  I want you to know I want it that
way.  And I love you for it." I looked at her gratefully, if a little
confused.

"Dear, would you get me a drink," she asked me.  "And take care of
yours and Pearl's too." I flounced over to the liquor cabinet -- those
first drinks were beginning to have their effect -- and I poured us
each a double.  Pearl looked at hers and set it aside for the moment.
I handed Bea hers, and she sipped it, carefully, than set it aside and
straddled the back of a chair like a pirate, legs spread on either
side.  For some weird reason I felt a surge of pride that I was part of
her life.

"Here's how it happened, Pearl.  A month after you told me your plans,
Kay called to tell me she couldn't join us tonight, that she was had to
be out of town, some medical convention or other.  Well, I was crushed.
Henry couldn't cheer me up at all.  I told him how terribly
disappointed I was.  But I didn't need to.  He already knew how much
this night out with the girls meant to me.  He could see the gleam
going out of my eye.  He felt terribly sorry for me, and he thought
about it some.  Didn't you, dear?"

I looked at her gratefully again, but I still couldn't talk.  There was
this enormous lump in my throat.

"When Kay had to beg off, that left just the two of us, you and me.  It
didn't seem...well...festive enough.  Then the more I thought it
through, the more it seemed right that Henry should help us make up our
original threesome.  In fact, the more I thought about it, the better I
liked the idea.  Henry must certainly know what some of the men in town
do with some of the women in town, so he could tell us some real hot
stories too, I was sure, things he's been too proper to tell me, once
we got into the right gossipy mood.  It might be fun."

"So the next night I asked him if he'd take Kay's place, so I could
still be with my dearest friends, the way we'd planned it.  Then I
wouldn't have to think about him sitting at home while we were all out
together having fun.  I told him this would be his gift of love to me,
my fortieth birthday gift, a gift I wanted from him more than anything
else in the whole world.  Well, he told me he'd do it.  He didn't think
he knew any gossip, but it was enough that I wanted him by my side.  So
he agreed."

Pearl leaned back into the sofa.  "Let me get this straight, if that's
the word for it," she said.  "And maybe you'd better keep working on
your drink, Honey.  I think maybe you'll want to begin this evening a
little tizzled.  Let's see, Bea told you that Kay would be out of town
tonight, and that she wanted you to fill in?  And you agreed?" She
looked me up and down again, and picked up her own drink.  She took a
swallow.  "Dressed and made up the way you are?  A real foxy lady, just
like Kay?"

I was a little bewildered that Pearl had a problem with this.  "Well,
not right away," I began.  "I didn't realize at first that she wanted
me to go all out as one of you girls, to become one of the girls
myself, so to speak.  To fill in for Kay in every respect.  I thought
she just wanted me to come along as her husband.  But a few days later
I realized she meant more than that, when she took me shopping and
bought me some brassieres and things.  By then I couldn't disappoint
her.  Pearl, I just couldn't!  So I decided I had to go along with it.
And that's what I've done."

"Wait a minute," Pearl said, glancing at Bea, who got some kind of
message and remained silent.  They'd known each other a long time.
"You say 'brassieres'.  Plural.  How many brassieres did you buy that
day?"

"Well, actually, seven or eight" I replied, wondering why she should
ask.  "A training bra and some A, B, and C cups, and then a few more C
cups, different kinds of lacy patterns and colors.  Underwire," I
added, thinking maybe that information would solve whatever was Pearl's
problem.  Bea smiled reassuringly at me.

"I see," Pearl said, glancing again at Bea.  "And you're wearing one of
your C cups tonight?"

"Yes," I said.  "After a month or so wearing each of the smaller sizes,
they no longer fit me.  I kept spilling over."

"I see," Pearl said again.  One of her odd grins was forming on her
face again, and I didn't understand why.  "Bea, by any chance have you
been taking Honey here -- I'm calling him Honey now, because I'm
getting the message that Henry is not long for this world -- have you
been taking Honey here to see Kay, for vitamin supplements or
something?"

"Why of course, Pearl," my wife answered quietly.  She glanced at me.
"Honey had to ask Kay lots of questions about filling in for her.  And
while they were chatting she wrote him some prescriptions for various
of his problems.  Not that he has any.  But just to be on the safe
side."

"I see," Pearl said once more.  "Ummm, Honey, how many new dresses do
you have upstairs, besides the one you're wearing?"

"Only three others," I replied.  "But one of them is pretty much worn
out, because we've used it as a practice dress for months, smoothing it
when I sat down, and straightening it whenever I got up from sitting on
the toilet to pee, and so on.  I wore it all the time, put it on as
soon as I came home, and most weekends.  My other things, my skirts and
blouses and heels and flats and so on, are all still pretty much new.
I have a whole closet full, so I don't have to wear any one of them
very often.  Bea thought it might be useful for me to have them, just
to fill out my wardrobe.  To get used to wearing what women wear.  So I
wouldn't feel self-conscious when I was learning how to move the way
women move, and how to hold myself, and everything.  Why do you ask?"

"No reason," said Pearl.  "Another question.  A long shot.  My idle
curiosity, no more than that.  This one's going to sound very odd, but
I don't think Bea will mind my asking.  Did Bea ask you to clean out
your bottom today?  Just before you started to dress?  Or to do
anything else down there, anything exceptional?"

I got annoyed.  "Pearl, that's rather personal!  But since you ask, no,
nothing exceptional at all.  Months ago Bea asked me to take an enema
daily before I put in the suppositories Kay gave me, and that's what
I've done.  For cleanliness.  And today she asked me to put in a tampon
when I'd finished flushing myself out, so I'd stay clean all evening no
matter what, and not leak accidentally onto my new dress.  So that's
what I've done.  Any more questions?"

By now Pearl was grinning broadly at Bea, and Bea was looking back at
her mildly.  Somehow they both looked very satisfied with themselves.
Women, I thought.  Who will ever understand them.

"Well, just one last question.  Isn't it time for us to go to dinner?"



2.



Dinner turned out to be the least of it.  It was Bea's big night, but
it was mine too, the first time I ever left the house looking like a
woman.  Despite my months of practice I was rather nervous.  But we
linked arms walking to Pearl's car, and we giggled about something, and
some kids walked by without even glancing at us.  So I felt better
about it.  Walking on my heels was no problem after all those months of
practice.  When we reached the car, Bea reminded me to fluff my hair
with my finger tips now and then.  "It's a very attractive gesture,
dear."

Pearl drove us.  When we got to the restaurant's Valet Parking a boy
opened the door for me and stood watching, and I was grateful for Bea's
lessons how to get out of a car in a skirt -- twist, swing my legs out,
straighten my skirt, stand up.  The Maitre D' led us to a corner table,
and we settled our purses on the floor by our chairs, and read the
menus.  Bea ordered for me -- clear soup, and a small warm salad.  She
cautioned me against nibbling on the bread and butter.  "Your figure,
dear," she said.  "Later you're going to feel stuffed, I'm sure, so you
don't want to eat too much now." Pearl let out a guffaw, but didn't
look up from her menu.  She ordered a bottle of Chardonnay, and we
finished it, feeling even more tiddly than at the house.  Things went
very well.  I ate teeny bites, and patted my lips now and then.  It was
just like all those practice dinners at home.  Even Pearl began looking
at me with admiration.

"You're very good, Honey," she said.  "It's as if you were born to it.
Do you think you were?  Are you a woman in a man's body?"

"Pearl, cut it out!" I said.

Bea interrupted.  "No, Honey.  Say, 'Pearl, do stop teasing me, or I'll
start to cry.'"

I tried again.  "Pearl, please, don't!" I said.  I really felt hurt.
Bea looked satisfied, and Pearl eased off.

"No, tell me.  I'd like to know.  This is the night for confessions,
remember!  I asked you earlier if you'd ever done this before, dressed
up like a girl, maybe secretly, and you never answered."

"You never gave me a chance, Pearl.  Did I try on my mommy's panties
when I was little?  Yes, I suppose every boy does.  Out of curiosity.
Did I feel some special charge or satisfaction while doing it?  No,
nothing, so I did it only that one time."

Pearl leaned back.  If she hadn't recently quit smoking, she would have
lit a cigarette.  I could tell she was about to say something she
actually meant!  "Honey, it's no secret that I didn't think you'd do
this.  You're not a gung ho macho man, like that asshole I married, but
you are a straight arrow, and not a very sharp one.  If you'll pardon
my words, you have always seemed to me to be an unimaginative lunkhead,
someone who was repressing Bea's natural high spirits without even
knowing it.  I have often thought that a divorce from you would be a
good thing for Bea.  But she wouldn't hear of it.  Not ever.  And now
look at you.  Never would I have conceived it, that you'd be sitting
here tonight in a dress nibbling on a small salad.  Looking very much
like a lady.  I feel like comparing menstrual symptoms with you, you
look so believable.  And you even sit down every time you go to the
bathroom, is that what you said earlier?"

"Yes, that's right.  It was Bea's idea, for the practice.  It seemed to
please her, so I do it all the time now.  It did solve all those
problems married people have, about leaving toilet seats up or down.
So now that's my gift to her too.  I sit down for everything."

"Yes," said Pearl thoughtfully.  "You may soon have no choice.  But
tell me, dear, if you weren't born with...er...transvestite tendencies,
how do you feel about wearing women's clothes now?.  How long is it
since Bea bought you those first brassieres?  When you wear them, do
you feel...ah...different?  Is it...nice?  And you've been retraining
your whole body to be more ladylike.  Does that feel...nice?
Confession time, now."

"I guess it's like you to ask those questions, Pearl," I said.
"Because the answers are a little embarrassing." I glanced at Bea, and
saw her nod, almost imperceptively.  "OK. At first I just felt silly, a
man putting on his training bra every morning.  Bea's fortieth was nine
or ten months away, and it made no sense.  But Bea said that learning
to act like a woman is like learning to play the piano, an art that
expresses feelings, and that I needed the feelings as well as the
techniques, and that it takes a while to develop them.  I spent a lot
of time imagining how women feel, about themselves, about each other,
and about men, which at first was a total mystery to me.  Then as my
nipples got hard lumps behind them and my breasts started to grow, Bea
helped me with my own feelings.  Every night Bea would caress my
nipples, or tweak them gently, until they got hard.  Like Bea's now." I
looked at those finger-thick nipples poking Bea's blouse, a mature
woman's nubs outlined in black satin, and again felt proud to be
married to Bea.  Also, inexplicably, a little jealous.  "Every night
when Bea caressed me it felt more and more marvelous.  So soft, and
feminine, and delicious, and attractive, ...well...never mind.  I got
so I couldn't wait for my skin to get smoother, and my breasts to swell
up more, grow into bigger globes that needed bigger bra cups.  When I
went to the office, wearing my bra, maybe covered by a slip or a Teddy,
I was so happy with them I'd often push out my chest, and they'd swell
through my shirt on either side of my tie, and my suit jackets would
fall back and frame them, so anyone could see who'd bother to look.
Just the way women's suit jackets do when they're unbuttoned.  I began
to feel delighted with my figure, almost as much as Bea.  I guess I
didn't care who noticed.  No one did, that I know of.  That
disappointed me, sometimes."

"I told Bea, and she said that was my feminine side beginning to
express itself, and that I should give it more freedom.  So I began
turning most of my office work over to my partner, and doing more
business by phone.  I took to wearing panties, or pantihose, all the
time, and women's blouses and shirts, and women's jeans and slacks
whenever I went out, and of course when I was home, skirts, and my
practice dress.  And I took to moving the way women walk, naturally but
with a grace I've always loved in women.  You know.  Bea has it.  Even
you have it, when you want to.  I like pretending I'm graceful and
pretty in my own way, and Bea says I really am.  And more and more,
I've been feeling the way I imagine women feel all the time about
things, little enthusiasms and sorrows rising up all the time in my
heart.  Bea was so pleased, the first time I cried for joy at some
silly television drama.  We cried together, and it was such good fun."

One by one Bea put away my men's things, and bought me more women's
things, and taught me how to wear them, and how to combine them with
each other.  Now I love them.  Even my mens' clothes now are really
women's clothes, man-tailored.  They feel just...well...right.  I feel
...  complete in them.  And waking up every day and choosing my
wardrobe is a whole new adventure for me.  I love waking up each day!"

Pearl seemed to be overwhelmed by what I had said.  "So for months
now," she said, almost disbelieving, "you've been wearing women's
clothes at home full time, practicing walking in high heels, and fixing
your lipstick, and letting your wrists hang free, and things like that,
because you like it?  Because it feels good?"

"Yes.  At first mainly because I didn't want to disgrace Bea.  For fear
that when the big moment came tonight, I would give myself away as a
man, and be ridiculed by whoever saw me.  But you're right.  It does
feel good.  Nowadays, all I have to do is put on a bra with my breasts
gathered up in each cup, and my nipples protruding way forward, and I
get the same delicious feminine feelings Bea brought out by caressing
me.  Then I want to do more things that girls do.  Bea and I cuddle a
lot together.  And today in the beauty salon was such a treat!  I love
the way my hair came out!  You shouldn't mock me about these things,
Pearl.  That's the way I am, now.  And it's how Bea wants me."

"You're right, Honey," Pearl said.  She set her fork down and looked at
me, and said softly.  "I'm sorry.  I had no idea things had proceeded
this far.  I guess I thought Bea had duped you, not that she'd
converted you, or discovered you.  Maybe you always were a
transvestite, or a transsexual, but never knew it." Then Pearl suddenly
straightened up, and said in a sprightly way, "But now you're one of
the girls, just in time for tonight.  That's just fine!  Tell me, dear,
these feminine feelings, do they include feminine feelings about men?"

Bea interrupted, her voice a trifle sharp.  "Let me set the pace here,
Pearl.  Henry is married to me, and while Honey lives inside Henry she
will be as true to me as Henry has been.  Henry has never cheated on
me, he says, and I believe him.  I've never cheated on Henry either.
That's why it's important that whatever we do tonight, we do it
together.  Especially tonight.  If Henry decides tonight to let Honey
be herself, I don't say that Honey shouldn't feel free to find her own
way in the world, and to make her own commitments.  My obligations are
to Henry, the way Henry's are to me.  Do you follow me?  That's why I'm
so delighted that tonight, it's Honey we're out with, that she's one of
the girls, not Henry.  She'll do whatever she feels like doing,
tonight.  The way we all will."

I was lost.  I didn't understand a word of what Bea had just said, but
Pearl nodded slowly.  She was obviously impressed.

Bea and I then went together to the Ladies' Room together, my very
first visit to any Ladies' room anywhere, and my dear companion my very
own wife, while Pearl stayed behind to pay the check.  We primped and
fussed and chatted, and I combed my hair out a bit, and only when we
were leaving did I realize that I had gone into a booth to pee, and sat
down to pee, and wiped myself, and risen to adjust my dress, all
without thinking about it at all.  It was now second nature to me.
Maybe even first.



3.



Next we went to a concert, a string quartet playing Mozart and
Schubert, Bea's favorites.  The pieces they played were all gentle, and
beautiful, and some of them terribly sad.  At one moment when the music
was especially unhappy, Bea leaned over and kissed me on the cheek,
very sweetly.  I looked over and saw she had tears in her eyes.  I took
her hand and held it tightly.  "What's that for?" I asked in a small
voice.  "Nothing," she replied.  "You'll see." Then she said, "Oh, I do
hope everything works out the way I've planned it.  I do hope so!" I
couldn't ask her what she meant by that, but I noticed that she held my
hand tightly in both her hands through the rest of the concert.  I
remember how satisfying it was, each time I looked down into my lap, to
see our newly manicured red fingernails all tangled and coiled
together, looking so elegant.

Afterward we went to a night club, one with hot but also dreamy dancing
alternating very loudly in one section, near the bar, and stretching
for what must have been a city block, rooms and cubicles one after
another for drinking and for noisy or quiet conversation.  As we
settled down in a booth, and our drinks came, and we started sipping
them, I glimpsed someone familiar coming toward us.  I got the shock of
my life!

It was Kay!  I half rose in surprise, but then I remembered I was a
lady, and settled back down.  She came straight over to our table, and
Pearl and Bea moved to make room for her.  They both were delighted to
see her.  Neither looked especially amazed.  "Kay!" I said.  "I thought
you had to be somewhere else tonight!  Why are you here?  I mean, it's
wonderful that you're here, because now you can help us with Bea's
birthday.  But weren't you supposed to be somewhere else?  Isn't that
why I'm here?"

"Yes, I was supposed to be elsewhere," she said.  "But I changed my
mind.  I figured I'd be more useful here tonight.  Hello, Henry.  You
are Henry, aren't you?" She peered more closely at me.  "My heavens,
look at you!  It's amazing!  Those treatments really did their work,
didn't they?  You look absolutely ravishing, Henry!  I love it!  You
look good enough to eat!"

"Tonight, Henry is Honey, Kay," Bea said.  "The way we discussed it.
That's the way it should be, and that's the way Honey wants it to be."

"Of course.  Honey!  You are a real stunner, Honey!  I'd invite you
home with me, if I didn't know you have other plans.  Sorry, girls,
I've been drinking, waiting for you to show up.  Well, anyhow, I'm
here, and now we're all here, all of the girls, including our newest
girl." She smiled at me charmingly.  I smiled back.  "Let's start the
proceedings.  Aren't we all supposed to tell Bea something about the
first time we had sex with someone we weren't married to?  After we
were already married, I mean?  Those stories are usually the juiciest.
Honey, you go first.  Tell us your favorite infidelity."

"Honey hasn't had any infidelities yet, Kay," Pearl said.  "She's too
new.  She's still a virgin.  And Bea just told me that Henry hasn't had
any infidelities either.  I don't think he's a virgin, though there's
some question whether he's ever done anything memorable.  Anyhow,
Henry's not here tonight.  He isn't one of the girls."

"All right, I'll go first, then Pearl," Kay said.  "Order us some more
drinks.  Bea looks too quiet, and Honey needs another, I'm sure."

"Well, I had sex with quite a few people right after I was married,
within a few hours in fact.  But I don't think I was unfaithful.  Steve
and I had been swinging singles for a long time, and one day when I had
his dick in my mouth and my finger in some local housewife's ass we
decided that we would make a great team.  We should get married.  We
could offer ourselves together, and be more selective.  You know what
Bernard Shaw said, that marriage is popular because it offers a maximum
of temptation and a maximum of opportunity.  Well, it's sort of true,
but not the way he meant.  Any two people can live together without
being married, and any two people can fuck.  But marriage is a
partnership.  It's popular because it assures established partners that
they can link up with other established partners, and form new his and
her couples, or his and his, or hers and his and hers, or whatever
other combinations anyone likes, and at least some of the partners will
always be compatible.  But if you do that, you have to trust each
other.  You have to tell each other everything.  That's keeping faith
with each other.  That's fidelity.  That's why we got married.  That's
why we're still married.  We're still popular, with couples and with
individuals.  We're both good at what we do, and we enjoy it.
Sometimes we even do it together.  But we always tell each other
everything.  We trust each other, that we'll tell each other
everything."

"Anyhow, mine is a short story.  After the wedding Steve's best man
wanted a blow job, and no one was available.  The bridesmaids had all
gone off with different wedding guests, or with each other.  One of the
bridesmaids was a transsexual like you, Honey, if that's what you are
now, but there weren't any unattached men around for her, or any women
either, and she was feeling a little lonely.  Weddings do that to
people sometimes.  So anyhow, I suggested she take care of Steve's best
man.  But it turned out she was was a lesbian, and didn't like oral sex
with men.  Lots of men who are women are lesbians, it's the way their
mothers make them even before they're born, poor babies, but they
usually don't mind once they get used to the idea.  So I volunteered to
take care of Steve's best man instead -- that wasn't being unfaithful
to my new vows, exactly, I thought, unless I were to put his cock into
my vagina, and I never wanted to do that.  He was a creep, and Steve
had invited him only because he owed him money.  I still owed a lot of
money from Medical School, and we didn't need more debt.  So I blew
him, and he cancelled whatever Steve owed him.

To keep things even, I asked Steve to take care of the transsexual
bridesmaid, to fuck her pussy, if she'd have him.  Her vagina was
constructed in another State where they recognize that sex change
operations change a person's sex, so it was a proper vagina as far as
she was concerned.  But in this redneck, cracker State where we had
just gotten married it took more than that to become a woman.  If you
weren't born one, then God himself had to come down during the
operation, and take over the surgery.  So it wasn't a vagina in this
State, just a slit, so here she couldn't be a lesbian officially, just
a guy who likes girls.  So Steve could fuck her vagina good and proper,
and still not be unfaithful to me, as long as they didn't cross State
lines to do it.  So that's what Steve did.  My bridesmaid transsexual
friend was willing to go along with it.  She appreciated the gesture.
And we'd been old friends a long time.  We'd even slept together in
college.  You know, I don't remember which sex she was then, or even
which gender."

"OK so far.  But this creep I had just blown told Steve that I had
spread for him, can you imagine it?  On my wedding night?  And Steve
believed him.  He couldn't see why I hadn't -- we didn't put any of
that "forsaking all others" and "husband and wife are one flesh" stuff
into our wedding vows anyhow.  I don't say I wouldn't have fucked him
if he weren't a creep, but he was, and I didn't, OK? Anyhow, Steve
didn't believe me.  Now there was a violation, right off.  When you get
married, you plight your troth, which is old fashioned language for you
are true to each other, which is middle fashioned language for you
don't lie to each other, which is modern language that means what it
says, and is the proper basis for any marriage as I see it.  You trust
that each one of you is telling the truth, even about the length of the
stranger's dick that reamed you silly the previous night.  You don't
lie.  You have to trust each other."

"Well, Steve didn't believe me.  So I got mad, and phoned all of
Steve's ushers, and told them to get over to the hotel where we were
married, we had to do it again because there was a page missing from
the marriage manual, or something.  And when they came, I pulled a
train with them.  Told them they could all gang shag me as long as we
all held out.  Well, whatever they were up to with the bridesmaids and
the wedding guests, most of them still had a couple of shots still left
in them.  So I wore them all out.  God!  I was squishy for days after
that.  Anyhow, later on that night, on our nuptual bed, Steve noticed
that I was pretty wet down there.  In fact, standing, sitting, or lying
down, I was pouring cum like a half-open faucet.  I told him the truth.

And he forgave me, and apologized for doubting me about the creep.  He
then told me that my bridesmaid, the one he had screwed, the sexually
re-assigned lesbian except in this State, would rather have been with
me than him, because she felt like a lesbian even in this State.  I
felt terrible about that.  So I went to her hotel room, and that's
where I spent the rest of my wedding night.  Steve looked pretty happy
the next day, but I thought enough was enough, so I never asked him
where he'd spent the rest of that night.  He would have told me, I know
it.  And ever since then, we've tried to tell each other everything.
And we believe each other.  We never lie, or exaggerate.  We trust each
other.  We are as true to one another as we can be.

But it remains a fact.  The first people I screwed after I got married
were a majority of the bridal party, even before I screwed my husband.
And the first person he screwed, even before he screwed his new wife,
was a transsexual girl I then screwed that same night.  We all have so
many holes and bulges, and they fit so many others, it's no wonder we
can't keep track.  But a married couple should try.  That's what we
promise each other.  To try."

We were all silent after Kay stopped talking.  Then Pearl asked, "Kay,
how much of that story is true?"

And Kay answered, "Which parts are giving you trouble?"

Bea said, "I understand what you're telling me, Kay.  Thank you.  I
think we all need more to drink.  Call the waiter over."

More drinks came.  I was beginning to feel a bottomless place under me,
and that I was teetering on the edge of falling into it.  So I didn't
notice, until Pearl pointed it out, that the next round of drinks came
from three interesting looking men sitting together not far away.  They
were a bit gray in the temples, two of them, and one had a well-shorn
black beard.  All were nicely dressed, and rather handsome in fact.
Probably professional men.  It seems Pearl knew one of them, and she
went over to thank them and to chat.  She came back.

"They were wondering if we cared to dance, any of us.  I told them
certainly, but that we wanted a little more time to talk together.
Just us girls.  I've told them our plans for tonight, Bea, and they've
offered to help out in any way they can.  I told them we'd see."

"Sounds good to me, Pearl," said Kay.  "Your turn."

Pearl sat down and thought a moment.  "Let's see," she said.  "My first
fuck out of wedlock, after my marriage.  Yes.  That was Tim, three
years into it.  A wonderful man.  It was a brief affair, only two
weeks, while my ex was away on a business trip.  I wish I'd known then
that my ex was going to be my ex, or I would have made him my ex a lot
sooner.  Maybe married Tim then and there.  But I was doomed to be
married for seventeen more years before that bastard ran off with that
slut whore, and I called it quits.

But Tim is another matter.  I still love him, very dearly, and we write
each other sometimes, even though he's married now himself, and I
wouldn't come between him and his wife for the world.  But I know he
loves me too."

"We went to the same college, and he was dating one of my sorority
sisters, who was of course two-timing him.  He thought they were sort
of engaged.  He was one of those kind, decent, gentle guys who write
poetry, and edit the literary magazine, and sit up all night listening
to girls with shit boyfriends who resent being shit on, girls who come
to him to tell him how they feel.  While they talk, they feel their own
self-respect flow back, because of his sympathy and understanding.
Every college has one.  My Tim was a wonderful man.  Still a boy, then,
really."

"Well, his fiancee's other boyfriend got jealous of him, and started
spreading the word that he was a faggot.  A ponce.  A fairy cocksucker.
And all of the shit boyfriends on campus picked up the tune, and one
day before a big costume dance they all got together to plan their
revenge.  They didn't know what he had done during those all night
sessions with their girlfriends.  But some of the girls had mustered
enough courage to break off after one or another of those nights, and
their boyfriends found this inexplicable and unforgiveable.

Tim's fiancee delivered him into their hands that night.  She talked
him into going to the ball with her as Romeo and Juliet, with herself
as Romeo, and got him a flouncy dress and a blond wig, and dancing
slippers, and put makeup on his face, and then told him they'd been
invited to a cocktail party at one of the fraternities, they'd just
stop there for a drink first on their way to the Gym.  Well, you know
guys, those kinds of guys.  You know what happened next.  She led him
into a room, pitch black, and then disappeared."

"Two hours later she was still dancing away with her other boyfriend
and his friends, in her green tights and little feathered cap, and
pretty swirling cape, having a delightful time.  By then Tim was lying
out on the quad unconscious, his asshole a bloody mess, his face and
his dress and his legs soaked with piss and cum and blood.  He had been
raped maybe thirty times, probably more -- he didn't know.  What he
told me afterward was, he was standing in the dark.  Then the lights
went on suddenly, and there he was, Juliet, standing in his dress and
his lipstick and his dancing slippers in the middle of a room with a
bare floor and one mattress on the floor, and all around him against
the wall maybe two dozen muscle men, maybe more, football players,
wrestlers, weight lifters, who knows?  They were all masked, and naked
except for black jock strops, and their bodies were all oiled and
gleaming, and they all stood with their legs apart and their arms
folded as if in some kind of final judgement.  Tim saw what was up
quickly enough, and tried to make a break for it.  But his fiancee had
led him in the dark into an inside room, soundproofed, with no doors,
where the fraternity conducts its secret rituals.  It turned out she
was led in the dark through different passageways by someone who knew
the way, and then when she had delivered Tim she was led out, back to
the fraternity quad, and given a corsage in thanks.  Then she went off
to the dance.  Tim didn't have a chance."

"The rest is rather vague even in his mind.  They read some kind of
hokey charges, and two men held him down.  A third raped him with a
broomstick, then he thinks with a baseball bat.  The pain was
unbearable, he said, and he's sure he fainted a few times.  Then they
all lined up and one by one they used his body, his mouth and his ass
and his hands, a few at a time, over and over, insisting that he jerk
every one of them off until there were no more pricks left to clutch,
and that he suck everyone off and swallow all of their cum, until they
had no more juice left, and that he receive gratefully every prick they
could lunge into his ass and every load of cum they could dump inside
him, and say 'Thank you!'  every time.  If he didn't thank them loud
enough, they'd pull his head way back by the hair until he couldn't
breath.  He says when he finally passed out his skirt was still
relatively clean, flung up over his back and his head so the muscle men
could have clear access to his anus, but that when he found himself on
the lawn a couple of hours later, unable to move for the pain, his
skirt was stiff with what seemed to be quarts of cum, and drenched in
piss.  So he figures that long after he had lost consciousness they
kept at it, to "teach the fucker a lesson" as they said."

"I know that's what they said because my ex-husband was one of them.
Tim spent a few weeks in the hospital, then left town, and never came
back.  That was the end of his college career.  The whole thing was
hushed over and forgotten, except by a few girls Tim had helped once,
one of them me, and of course by the rapists.  Well, a few years after
I was married I was in the mall buying a pair of shoes, and there was
this salesman kneeling in front of me trying to fit me with a pair I
had insisted would fit.  I was vain, and stubborn.  They were already
pinching.  I cried out, "Ouch, you stupid fool!" And he looked up at me
with such sorrow in his eyes!  There was Tim!

He didn't know me, of course, but his eyes started to brim, and he
said, "I don't want to hurt you, ma'am, really I don't.  I don't want
to hurt anyone!  Please forgive me!  Please!" And he looked about to
come apart.  I leaned over, and took his head in both my hands, and
held it, and then I leaned way over and looked into his eyes, just
looked, our noses almost touching.  More powerful feelings welled up in
me than I have ever felt in my life before or since.  I said, "Tim?"
And he was baffled and frightened for just a moment.  Then he suddenly
said, "Pearl?" And I broke down and started to bawl.  I just dissolved.
I collapsed into little pieces.  I started crying, "Tim!  Tim!  Tim!"
over and over, and I still don't know what I meant by that.  Maybe I
was mourning for all the decent people I'd ever known that had gotten
shit on.  Maybe for the decency in me that I buried after I got
married, then tried to forget altogether, because what good is it?  I
don't know.  He had to help me into the manager's office, I was sobbing
so uncontrollably.  And there he sat with me, just as in the old days,
waiting quietly until I could get a grip on myself."

"Then we went for coffee, and he told me how things were with him.  He
said that lying in the hospital, he couldn't handle the rage, and the
self-contempt, and the loathing.  When they released him he was still
taking a dozen showers a day.  He went crazy, he said, and he still
couldn't sleep without terrible nightmares.  Any large man still
terrifies him, he said.  He thought it was somehow his fault, exactly
what he had told any number of girls they should never believe about
themselves.  He felt polluted, inside and out.  He tried to remember,
relive the horror of it one person at a time, to exorcize it from his
mind.  But no use.  That only made it worse, he said."

"For a time he went on the streets and sold himself, he felt so
worthless.  He couldn't concentrate, or hold a job.  He tried to kill
himself, twice, he said, but he failed even there.  Worst of all, he
couldn't confide in anyone, or trust anyone.  He had this terrible fear
of betrayal, after what his fiancee had done to him.  When I tried to
touch him reassuringly after I got his phone number and gave him mine,
he trembled so hard he couldn't get his coat on."

"I was still hopeful about my marriage.  In fact it was going to last
another seventeen years, though I didn't know it, and I didn't know it
was going to cost me a large part of me, my enthusiasm, my trust in
other people, any instincts for kindness I might have had.  I was
already getting arrogant, getting to be the kind of woman who feels
free to talk bitchy to any shoe clerk who's only trying to do what he's
asked to do.  I got worse, as the years went by.  You know that now I'm
a tough broad, hard to live with, sarcastic, suspicious of any kindness
anyone shows me, much too cynical.  That's what life with my husband
did to me.  But you tolerate it because you know there's more to me.
We both know when I'm putting on my masks.  You know I'm a wiseass
mainly for my own amusement, and for self-protection.  And you know
that when all my acting has played itself out, I do care!  I care a
lot!  I know you know this, or you couldn't stand me for a minute.
Neither could I."

"Well, I was more trusting in those days.  That night I mentioned to my
partner in life that I had met Tim, the fragile young man who had
helped me and so many of my friends when we were in college, who had
been brutalized by some bastard jocks, and had left school.  He only
commented, 'Oh, yeah, the pansy who used to talk my brothers'
girlfriends into fucking other guys.  Well, we fucked him that night,
but good.  The piece of shit!  He really looked like shit when we
dumped him on the quad, after we taught him to mind his own business.
He hasn't forgotten that lesson yet, I'll bet!'"

"At that time I knew that my partner in life, my very own piece of
shit, was already fucking other women.  Only three years into our
marriage!  But I couldn't figure out what to do about it.  Should I
call him down, and let him know I knew?  Should I ignore it, and hope
that it would pass?  Was it my fault?  When he said that about Tim, he
made up my mind for me.  "

"The next day he was going on a sales trip to the midwest, for two
weeks.  So the next day I called Tim, and asked him to have dinner with
me in a quiet little restaurant after his store closed.  We had two
cars in the garage, but I told him my husband took our car, so if he
didn't mind, I'd like him to take me home afterward.  We needed to
talk, I said.  I needed to talk.  He agreed."

"We ate, and we talked.  It was just like the old days.  I found I was
telling him all about my marriage, and what it seemed to be doing to
me.  He listened.  By the way he listened, I could tell when I was
striking poses, or pretending, or overdramatizing myself, and I could
tell when I was talking to him from my heart.  He was that kind of a
guy.  I heard myself speak truths, and I heard myself kidding myself.
I knew he could tell the difference, so I heard myself with his ears,
and for the first time since my marriage, maybe even before then, I was
absolutely honest with myself.  Tim just listened."

"We took a taxi home, and I asked him in for a nightcap, just a quick
one.  He was uncertain, but I took his elbow, and he was through the
door and into the living room before he could say No.  Then we talked
for another hour.  He sat on the sofa, looking at our fire in the
fireplace, and I sat on the rug in front of him, also looking into the
fire.  We both relaxed a little more.  We even got cozy.  After a while
I snuggled between his knees, and leaned my head back onto him, and
rested my arms on his thighs, and we both looked at the fire, and I
poured a little more wine, and we both felt mild and easy.  We talked
some more.  I told him the worst of my fears about my life with my
husband.  He wanted to comfort me, I could tell, but his hand wouldn't
quite bring itself to stroke my hair.  As soon as I dared, when I felt
his hand resting on my head, and trembling a little less, I preened
myself against it.  I was really afraid to move, for fear he would
start to shake again, and his ghosts would return, and he would rush
out of the house without even letting me call him a taxi."

"But at a particularly magical moment, I knew I had to act.  I said,
'Tim?'  and he said, 'Pearl?'  as if he already knew what I was going
to ask him.  So I didn't ask him.  I twisted around between his knees,
and laid my cheek against his crotch where his balls had to be, and I
kissed his jeans where his cock had to be.  Then I said, 'Please hold
me.'  Thank God, he put both hands on my head, and gently pressed my
face into his crotch.  I hugged his thighs, and then sat up a little,
and unzipped his pants, and ever so gently took out his cock, and held
it in both my hands.  What a treasure!  But it looked so shy.  I kissed
it.  I kissed it again.  I asked him to kiss me, and he touched his
lips to me.  Then I took his prick firmly in one hand, and I sat up,
and settled onto the couch next to him, and snuggled against him, and
then worked my hand slowly up and down on his prick.  I asked him to
kiss me again.  He did, on my lips this time.  I sighed, without even
realizing it."

"Then for the next half-hour we were like high school kids.  We kissed
each other.  I kissed him everywhere I could reach, his face, his
mouth, his eyes, his neck, and he kissed me, especially on my neck.
Little by little he grew warmer, more sure of himself.  And all the
while I was moving my hand gently up and down on his tool, being
careful never to seem casual or absent-minded.  I wanted him to feel
pleasure there too, every minute we were also kissing and hugging."

"Then I went down on him.  It was exquisite.  I bent over, and put my
head in his lap, and put the head of his cock in my mouth, and I made
love to it.  It grew.  I licked it, and I kissed it.  And it grew
larger.  He lifted himself to put it deeper into my mouth, and that was
the first move he had made toward me without my asking.  The very
first.  I almost began to cry.  I slipped my head down on his meat, and
he lifted himself up, and then again, and finally there we were.  We
were making love together, in rhythm, delicately responsive to each
other.  I think I was the first girl to make him feel desired since his
fiancee had abandoned him in the dark."

"So I took a very big chance.  All of a sudden I stood up, and said,
'Tim, we are going to make love tonight.  Don't say No.  Don't.  Please
don't.  If you can't make love to me, then just let me make love to
you.  I need you.  Oh, how I need you.  I want you to kiss me.  I need
you to kiss me.  All over.  We need to take our clothes off.  We need
to go to bed.  Come to bed, Tim.  Please.  For me.'  And oddly enough,
it was for me.  It had to be for me.  He'd have known if I was faking
it.  He'd have known if it was only gratitude, or some misplaced
charitable instinct, or if I was using him to get even with my husband.
It had to be real caring, and he had to care for me too."

"Tim said, 'All right, Pearl.  I want to kiss you too.  All over.  For
me.  I know what you're doing.  You are the most wonderful girl I have
ever known.'"

"So we went to bed.  The rest is what people do together, men and
women, boys and girls.  We took off our clothes and lay together side
by side upstairs, in the big bed I shared with my husband.  And in the
warm yellow glow of our night light, we looked at each others' bodies.
And we touched each other.  We touched each others' faces, and
shoulders, and arms -- each touch seemed a miracle.  And we caressed
each other.  He stroked the steep curve over my hip down to my waist,
again and again, and told me it was a marvel he couldn't believe was
real.  Almost right off I found a place on his neck that started him
moaning.  We found each others' nipples, and when our four hands
weren't enough we moved our mouths onto each others' bodies, and began
to kiss and lick each other, everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  The first
time I came that night, he came too, his lips gently pulsing on my clit
and his tongue sweeping my slit, and my mouth filled with his cock and
then with his cum.  So very delicious.  Then ever so gently I licked
him erect again, and I turned around and smiled and sat down on his
prick, and he lifted himself into me.  Then we moved into each other
and we rocked back and forth together, faster and faster, and I held
his shoulders, and when he came again so did I. It was so wonderful.
It was the only orgasm I have ever had that I would call peaceable, all
warmth and serenity and quiet joy, a feeling of love that spread
through my entire body, and then seemed to pass through me into him."

"We made love again that night, always attentive to each others' needs,
and exploring others.  The last time was passionate.  Yes, passionate!
By morning he had finally lost all of his inhibitions.  We trusted each
other absolutely, and we owned each other, and we took possession of
each other in whatever ways our whims dictated.  Over and over.  He
built up in me the most frenzied delight I have ever known.

"This went on for the whole two weeks my ex was away.  Tim came and
went at will, never mind what the neighbors might think.  His
self-confidence came rebounding back.  By the end of the first week we
were joking with each other while making love, and I discovered that
what people do with each other's pricks and breasts and cunts can be
enormous fun!  Other times it was like religion, beautiful, devoted,
rapt, so very spiritual, though always with a perfect communion of his
cock and my pussy at the heart of our worship.  At the end of the
second week he kissed me, and told me he had found a job in California
near a college where he intended to complete his degree, and that I had
saved his life, and that he loved me dearly.  I told him I loved him,
too, and always would love him.  And it was true.  I still do love him.
More than anyone I have ever known.  There was a perfect truth between
us, nothing wishful, no bullshit, no pretense.  And perfect caring for
each other.  I know he knows today how I still feel about him.  And I
know he feels that way too about me.  But we no longer need each other
the way we did then, when we were trying to lose ourselves in each
other, and instead we found ourselves."

Pearl stopped, and took a hefty swallow at her drink.  No one said
anything.

"Where are those three guys?" she asked.  "Weren't they due around
now?"

"You know, Pearl," said Kay, obviously impressed.  "That doesn't sound
like you at all."

"Thank you, Pearl," my wife said.  "I hear you." Her eyes were bright,
and I thought she was being sentimental.  Later I found out she was
thinking about me the whole time.



4.



Things got a little blurry after that, then a lot more blurry.  The
three guys came over, and we had a few more rounds of drinks.  Kay told
them what we'd been talking about, and they each of them told their own
stories of one night stands on business trips, hot sex with willing
partners, with every anatomical detail described.  They each referred
to their own pricks as heavy, or huge, or frightening to their ladies
at first.  Pearl questioned this, and they said they were willing to
bet her they were all three exceptionally well-endowed, put up or shut
up, her choice.  Pearl just smiled to herself, and took one of the men
by the hand and led him off to the dance floor.  I didn't see her again
that night.

Then my wife Bea spoke to the nicest of them, I thought, the quiet,
confident, gray-haired man called Bob.  I was a little looped, but I
noticed that her voice with him was different from her voice with me.
She commanded him, almost.  She said, "Well Bob, if you know how to
dance, ask me to dance." Bob looked at her, surprised, but he didn't
say anything.  Then Bea stood up on her spike-heeled boots with her
legs spread apart, and she twisted her pelvis slightly, and she put her
hands on her hips, and she leaned forward.  Her breasts pushed out into
her black silk blouse, inches from his face, and the tips of her
nipples were practically in his mouth, which fell wide open.

"Didn't you hear me, Bob?" she asked him.

Bob leaped to his feet, "Yes Ma'am!"

"Then what do you say?"

"Uh, would you like to dance, please, mmm...ah..mmm....?" He couldn't
finish.

Bea smiled.  She seemed to know why he couldn't finish.  "'Ma'am' will
do quite well for now," she said.  "Later I'll expect you to follow
your instincts when you address me!" And off they went to the dance
floor.

I lost sight of them for a few minutes, but when I next looked they
seemed awfully close.  Bea had thrust herself up against him, and was
looking up into his face with an imperious smile.  He seemed to be in a
daze, and I noticed that one of his hands was pressed between their
bodies.  She said something, and he actually took hold of one of her
breasts!  Her pelvis seemed to be stroking his.  She said something
else, and he leaned forward and buried his face in her neck.

I turned to tell Kay what I thought I had seen, a little disturbed.
But Kay had something to say to me first.  "Here's someone who wants to
meet you, Honey," she said.  "Treat him well and he'll treat you well.
Here, let me freshen your drink." A rather tall, thin man with blonde
hair across his forehead sat down next to me.  He looked at me for a
moment, then gazed into my face and said, "I've been wanting to meet
you all evening, Honey," he said.  "You are absolutely lovely." He was
very personable, the kind of man that women find attractive at first
sight, I'm sure.  He had an odd appeal even I could sense.  He took my
hand, and I looked down at my hand in his, and I was happy that Marge
had made my nails so beautiful.  I hoped he wouldn't realize what I
really was.  I wondered what would happen if he did.

"Thank you," I said.  If I had been standing, I'm sure I would have
tried to curtsy.  Instead, I bobbed my head at him and smiled, and
hoped I looked appreciative.  This was the first pass anyone had ever
made toward me, and the first compliment I had ever received from a
stranger.  My heart welled up.  I knew that given who I was, what I
was, really, I should keep him at bay.  My purpose tonight was to keep
my wife company.  That was my purpose.  But she was off dancing with
another man right now.  It would be fun to flirt with this man, I
thought.

"Here you are, Honey.  Bottoms up!" Kay handed me a glass filled with a
straw colored beverage and a few ice cubes.  I drank it down in four
swallows, before I realized that her advice was not good advice.  "I
should sip, Kay," I said, feeling further distanced from myself than I
knew myself to be.  "That's what Bea told me."

"You should always do what Bea tells you, Honey," Kay said.  Then she
and her own gentleman, the dark bearded one, disappeared.

My new blonde friend hadn't moved from my side, nor had he let go my
hand.  "I'll get you another drink, Honey, one you can sip," he said.
He snapped his fingers in the air.  There was another drink in front of
me.  I sipped it.  He said something I couldn't quite hear, and when he
repeated it, he came very close to me, and I felt his breath and his
lips on my ear.  I blushed, and tried to push him away, but teasingly,
because he was really such a lovely man.  But I almost fell off my
chair.  Then he was sitting on the other side of me, and I was resting
my head on his shoulder, and he was telling me something, and I was
listening, and smiling, and nodding.  I felt very content.  No idea
why.  I closed my eyes.

Then I don't know.  He was dancing me backward, and I was in his arms,
following his steps, looking into his eyes and smiling.  I thought we
passed Bea and her gray haired friend, but I couldn't be sure.  There
were billowing black sleeves around some man's neck, and a glimpse of
her big hair maybe.  But their faces were absorbed in each other.  Were
they kissing?  I couldn't see, with my eyes closed.  My blonde man
kissed my closed eyes, tenderly, and I responded!  I kissed his face.
I could feel a man's bristles on my lips.  He was such a lovely man!  I
put my arms around his neck and I kissed his mouth.  Just like Bea.  I
felt a lot like Bea.  If it was Bea I had seen, her black sleeves.  But
my arms were bare, and smooth.  Bea had insisted I use lotions all over
my body.  I felt bare, and smooth.  I pulled him closer.  His tongue
kissed my mouth.  We danced with his tongue in my mouth, or mine in
his, and I put my lips softly on his lips.  He tasted so sweet!  Had I
said aloud what I thought I had seen?  Bea kissing?  He kissed me
again.  To the table, another whiskey.  A slow romantic dance, and I
was plastered against him, I was part of him, so we could dance
together.  His hands felt my breasts, fondling my little nipples,
cupping me and lifting me.  They are real breasts I thought.  Bea made
them for me.  They feel very nice.  His hands feel very nice.  My eyes
were closed now.  We danced around the table, and his penis pressed
into mine and I was feeling strangely excited, as if I were melting
into him.  My heart melted into him.  More music from somewhere, but my
eyes were closed.  I felt very good.  I held him tightly around his
neck.  Such a very lovely man!

"They're gone," my man said.  Who?  "I'd better take you home," he
said.  "I know where you live, don't worry, dear." All right.  We'll go
home.  I picked up my purse.  There were no other purses near the table
any more.  As he steered me out the door, I heard a voice, was it
Kay's?  A woman's voice.  Bea's?  Not my woman's voice.  I heard "Don't
forget to take out your tampon, Honey dear.  Have fun!" My first fun.
Where am I? A parking lot.  No, I am home in my bed, and it's my bridal
night, and I am kissing someone passionately, and I am wrapping my legs
around him, and I am moaning in delight, and he is wrapped around me.
He is sucking on my tits.  I am suckling him.  I fold his head in my
arms.  My love!  Oh, my love!  He is entering me, and I open my whole
body wide to welcome him in.



5.



I came to consciousness of early morning light in the windows.  Dawn.
I was lying on our big king sized bed, in our bedroom, Bea's and mine,
only my head was turned to the foot of the bed, and tucked in snug.  My
arms were wrapped around bony buttocks, not Bea's round, soft pillows.
Someone's boneless finger was deep in my mouth, and I was nursing on
it.  Deep inside my crotch I felt a yearning for something hot and wet
and snug and soft, and I pushed into more wet velvety softness.  The
finger in my mouth began to rub on the slick insides of my lips, and I
could feel it was growing bigger.  I sucked on it and opened my eyes.

I saw my nose was buried in a leathery sack, soft and hairy.  Someone's
balls.  That my mouth was wrapped around someone's prick,
half-engorged.  That I was pulling my face into someone's crotch by
hugging his hips with all my strength, and not letting go.  That my own
prick was growing into more wet, warm, comfy velvet.  I moaned and
hugged the pillows even tighter.  His buttocks.  They rolled a little.
I was a comma inside a comma, and a luscious feeling grew deeper
between my legs.  My mouth slipped up and down on some man's dimpled
prick, with its royal purple head, like a gladiator's helmet, his
lovely, lovely cock.  I licked and sucked it while it grew larger, and
mine craved to be buried deep in his mouth.

"Oooohoooooh!" I heard a woman's throat vibrate richly, luxuriantly,
purring, and I realized that the throat was mine.  I thrust my nose
deep down, and I pulled his cock deeper into my face.  He did too,
sucking on my meat, holding my rump firm, lovingly.  Rumpled sheets.

I woke up completely.  I was in bed with some man, and we were in a
sixty-nine embrace with each other, probably because we had slept that
way much of the night.  Yes.  I could smell cum in his pubic hair,
someone's, mine or his, and still taste it salty in my mouth, though
his sweet cock was still growing in my mouth, and mine in his, and I
was sucking vigorously on his.  Finally I got up on my elbows and
devoted full attention to lapping and kissing his beautiful smooth
tower while a sweet tension grew deep behind mine, and I pumped his
face.  I fucked him, down his throat, which clung to my cock, until I
cried out "Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, nnng" and I came into him pulsing.  The
most delectable feelings flooded me inside his face.  I could feel him
swallowing me.

I am on my bed, I thought, and a man has just given me a great blow
job, and I am giving him the best I know how.  Why am I here?  I
noticed that my bra and my slip were rumpled around my shoulders, the
bra unfastened but the straps wrapped on me.  He was licking me off,
sucking on me still, until I was small, and clean, and wet.  A boneless
finger.

"Wait, Honey!"

His voice was soft, musical, gentle.  I took his tower into my hand, to
assure that it would be there when I turned my mouth back toward it,
and I saw my lovely slender red fingernails wrapping around it.  Then I
lifted my head and looked back along his legs up to his chest and face.
My body was smooth and soft, hairless, I could see.  I remembered how
Bea had showered me with a pungent cream before I went off to the
beauty parlor, and had rinsed it away to reveal my soft, woman's body.
It occurred to me that my hair must be a mess, and my face.  But I
didn't dare touch them.  His body as I looked along his legs was hairy,
my white skin lying against his.

Between my legs, there I saw my friend from last night, with his short,
blond, tousled hair, resting on one of my thighs, still caressing my
balls and my own softening prick with his tongue, still licking up my
own cum.  We weren't dancing together any more.  He smiled at me.

"It's daylight.  One more for the road," he said.  I didn't know what
he meant.  He wriggled out from under me, and turned, and gently
straddled my legs.  I felt deprived of him.  Where was that beautiful
velvet penis now?  I felt a prodding between my buttocks, and without
thinking I humped my hips high into the air to receive it.  The soft
tip of his rigid cock pressed on my anus, my cunt.  He'd been there
before, I realized.  My body was welcoming him into me again without
giving it a second thought, and I was already slick and wet, slippery
between my cheeks.  Cum from an earlier fucking?  No doubt of it,
though I couldn't remember.  How many times fucked?  No knowing.  A
few, at least.  I realized that my cunthole was well-stretched out,
that my ass would have no problem taking him in.  And in fact his
prick, now fully extended, slid into me like an old friend settling
into bed.

"Oooooh!" I said in deep satisfaction, and I wiggled my ass into him to
sink his prick even deeper.  I wanted him to plunge all the way into
me.  "Ooooh, lovely!  Fuck me, you sweet man.  Oh, darling, please,
fuck me!" Was that me, saying such things?  It was!  I must have been
saying such things for half of last night, they came so easily out of
my mouth.  I felt so feminine, so ripe, so complete, so fulfilled
inside me, so...just....  well...  just...lovely.  Just lovely, once
his meat was deep inside me.  His hands came around and grasped my
breasts, my beautiful soft mounds, and he cupped them with the palms of
his hands, and his fingers touched my dainty tips.  My beautiful
nipples.  My whole body felt such divine longing!  I felt so happy that
his hands were full.  That I could fill his hands.  Bea had been so
loving when she had trained my breasts out until they hung down from my
chest, into the cups of my bigger bras, into his hands where hers had
been, where hers were playing with my engorged nipples so deliciously.
As always, I felt so feminine, so loved.  It felt
just...so...wonderful!  I loved the feeling.  I loved that he was
holding me in both his hands, my pussy wrapped around his cock.

I embraced his tower with my buttocks, and we began to move.  Faster
and faster we probed and thrust into each other, over and over.  His
hands and his body possessed me!  All of me!  I was near fainting with
the pleasure of it.  Then I felt him swell up into me, and deep inside
I could feel his hot jism pumping into my bowels.  It was so
incredible!  I squealed again, even louder!  As I came down to earth, I
realized I had cum again too, that my prick was now sticky wet, pressed
into the mattress, having spurted without even getting hard!

He pulled out of me, and kissed the back of my neck, and got off the
bed, and started to get dressed.  I just lay there dreamily, and looked
at him.  He was thin as well as blond, with a rangy build,
well-proportioned, no sagging anywhere, and he smiled at me as he
stepped into his pants.  What was his name?

"Will I see you again?" I asked him, still euphoric.  What a question!
I felt like a one night stand picked up in a singles bar, But that's
what I was!  It felt so good!  I was a deeply satisfied woman, and that
is what a satisfied woman asks when her man leaves her bed!  I loved
that the words had come out of me so naturally.  Like his cum now
oozing out of my ass, I could tell by the slippery feel when I squeezed
my buns together, as if his prick were still somewhere safe there
inside me.

"That depends on your wife, Honey," he said gently, with a wry little
smile.  "Tell her 'Hi!'  for me when you see her.  And tell her thanks
for the use of her husband." He slipped on his undershirt and his
loafers, and picked up his shirt and tie and jacket, and headed for the
door.  "Time to leave," he said.  He paused at the door.  "You're just
great, honeybuns!  You have lots of passion down under there, waiting
for someone to bring it out.  And you have lots of talent for making
love, when you're aroused.  But be careful!  Fucking and sucking the
way you do it can be habit-forming."

He reflected a moment.  "It was a real privilege to take your cherry
last night," he said.  "I wasn't sure you even knew, though you were
certainly responsive enough, and grateful enough afterward.  Each time!
Anyhow, you sure knew what we were doing just now!  Welcome to the
club!  Honey, you are something very special!" He kissed the tips of
his fingers at me, and went out the door.

I got off the bed, and my rumpled slip fell down over my rump where it
belonged.  I felt like such a slut, and now my ass began to ooze cum
down my legs.  Who knew what my face and hair looked like now?  But I
didn't even know his name!  I followed him out the door.

When I got to the top of the landing, I saw Bea just coming in.  She
still looked sensational, though I noticed she was walking carefully
down the front hall toward the stairway as if limping on both legs.
She'd been out all night!  Where had she been?  Doing what?  My own
wife!  With another man?  My blond lover nodded to her as they passed,
and she nodded back, not even bothering to turn around.

"G'morning, Steve."

"Morning Bea.  Is Kay home yet?"

"I wouldn't know, Steve.  I don't think so, though.  When I left our
motel there was still moaning and shrieking coming from her room.  I
don't know how she can keep that up all night!"

"Oh, there are ways." Steve grinned at her, and cast a glance back at
me.  "G'Night, Honey.  It was really beautiful.  You're really
beautiful.  Any time at all!" He let himself out the front door.

Bea paused on her painful voyage up the stairs, and leaned on the
bannister below me.  "Well, Henry, are you Henry again, or are you
Honey now, now that you know the joys of being Honey?  Is there
anything you want to say to me, or shall we get to bed!"

I was utterly addled.  "No, Bea, for God's sake, I...we...  it was..."

"Yes, it certainly looks that way.  Well, Henry, let me relieve your
mind, right now, before you have a stroke.  You've just had a lovely
time with Steve, I'm sure.  Pearl and Kay and I have just had
delightful times with our guys.  Mine was just scrumptious.  When we
left you with Steve we went back to their motel rooms, just the way
Pearl and Kay arranged for us.  And we've been with them ever since.
All night.  Fucking their brains out.  And vice versa.  My special
birthday treat!  Bob was my special birthday treat!  The girls brought
him in from out of town, can you imagine?  A marvelous stallion,
plunging into me, and I rode him bareback.  By God, huge, and such
powerful thighs.  And yet so sweetly submissive when I ordered him
around.  I could make him do anything!  Anything at all!  Even when I
tied him up!  Well, later we'll compare notes.  I'm too tired now.  And
too sore.  I need a night's sleep, and that's where I'm headed."

I just stood there in my rumpled slip, my unhooked bra still hanging
from me, speechless.  She kissed me as she stepped past me, then paused
again and looked back with a wicked smile, but it was affectionate too.
"Henry, or Honey, my very own husband, my sweet dearest girlfriend, you
look as well-fucked as I feel!  I'm glad.  And you look as if you could
do with some sleep too, dear.  Are you also a little sore?  Does your
little pussy hurt?  I'll bet it does."

"Now we both have some wonderful tales to tell each other, and to tell
the other girls.  Later today, tea time, I've arranged for all of us to
gather here together for a lovely hen fest.  But first, sleep."

She paused again.  I think she realized that there was more to be said,
because I was still standing there with my mouth open.  I had tried
several times to say something, anything.  But nothing came out.  I
guess she decided that now was as good a time as any to relieve my mind
of its confusion.  She leaned on the railing, and then turned toward
me, while I was still staring at her.

"I think you finally understand now, dear.  This is what I wanted for
my big fortieth year celebration.  This is exactly what I wanted.  This
is what the girls have been arranging for me."

"But it's what I arranged for you, too.  The more we girls talked about
it, the more certain I was that this is what we both needed.  I love
you, and I love being married to you.  I didn't want to lose you, the
way Pearl lost her husband.  So there was always risk in what Pearl and
Kay were planning for me.  If I really went out on the town the way
they wanted, and you found out what I'd done, you'd divorce me!  Even
if you never found out, then what we're going to do from now on would
need to be hidden.  There'd be too much sneaking around.  Too much
dishonesty.  I wanted some real adventures, to meet some new guys, to
get intimate with them in new ways.  And if I liked it I wanted to keep
doing it, the way Pearl and Kay do.  But not at cost to us, lover.  I
cherish us!"

She straightened a little, and smiled at me sweetly.  "So my problem
was, how could I renew my life and enjoy other men without you getting
all macho and pompous about it, and declaring that our marriage was at
an end.  Or without you worrying yourself to a frazzle that you had
somehow driven me away by your own inadequacies.  Men all think that
any one of them should be enough for any one woman!  They're so silly!
So they blame themselves when their wives go astray, the decent ones
do.  Or their wives blame them.  I didn't want you to feel guilty.
This isn't your fault.  I just wanted to know before I got too old what
it would be like to be with another man.  With other men.  Maybe with
lots of other men.  To get well laid, in lots of different ways.
That's all.  But I didn't want you to suffer while I was doing it.  I
wanted you to know that we are still the same couple we've always been,
if you know what I mean.  Still together.  That we are perfectly safe
with each other whatever we may do with other people.  That we are
truly married."

"So the girls and I arranged this lovely, lovely night, exactly the way
it worked out.  You had to become one of us, truly one of the girls,
and do everything we were doing, and enjoy it just as much.  I've been
preparing you for nearly a year."

"Pearl never thought you'd do it, become Honey, an attractive girl out
to enjoy herself.  And even if you did become Honey, Pearl didn't think
you'd go through with the rest of it.  "A woman isn't a real woman
until some man has screwed her, one way or another, maybe both ways,"
she'd say.  "And he'll never agree to that.  He'll wimp out!" So she
wasn't much help.  But Kay helped out, giving you female hormones all
year so you'd look more like a woman, and feel more like one, and maybe
enjoy sex more like one.  And I guess that's what happened!  I'm so
glad!"

"When Steve showed up last night, that was Kay's signal to give you a
really heavy dose of tranquillizers, so you wouldn't get anxious about
me, or about yourself, and then also one more whopping overdose of
female hormones, so you'd feel especially sensitive in your intimate
places!  You'd never have tolerated my taking up with Bob the way I
did, I'm sure, unless you were already stoned out of your mind, and
already pretty horny yourself.  And I'm sure you'd never have gone to
bed with Steve on your own, even as Honey, even as drunk as you were.
It took a little more."

"In fact, when we left you, I wasn't sure you were still conscious!
But you were, in a way.  Enough, anyhow.  You did seem to be enjoying
yourself, dancing with your head thrown back, and your eyes closed, a
huge smile on your face, Steve's hands roaming all over you, and you
rubbing your tits all over him.  Kay said we could trust you with him.
So we left with our guys.  Bob and I had already started, even while we
were still sitting next to you at the table.  I mean, not a foot away
from you, there I was sitting in his lap french kissing him, and there
he was with his fingers somewhere inside my pussy, doing such marvelous
things!  Not a foot away!  But you were so wrapped up in your own man
you never even noticed!"

Bea paused, and then spoke very slowly.  "You have given me the most
precious birthday present I have ever had, love.  Thank you.  It was
very thoughtful of you.  As far as you thought about it, that is.  And
it couldn't have been more generous.  I'm so very happy!

I still couldn't think of anything to say.  "Bea," I began.  Then I was
silent again.

She came over to me on impulse, and kissed me again.  On the lips.  I
just looked at her.  Maybe those tranquillizers still had me a little
zonked.

"In a way this been my present to you too.  We'll talk about it when I
wake up.  When I went off with Bob, did you get nice and hard thinking
about what we might be doing?  And all last night here with Steve, did
you feel nice and soft and yielding when he was pumping into you?  The
way I felt with Bob?  Were you the teensiest bit turned on?  More than
just a teensy bit?  Did you have any really grand orgasms, huge rolling
ones, the kind Bob gave me?  Oh, I do hope so.  But don't worry about
it if you didn't, lover.  You will.  Now that you're not afraid to be
Honey, you won't need tranquillizers any more.  We'll see to it.  It'll
just take the right man."

"I must say, Honey lamb, thinking about Steve plowing your ass while
Bob was plowing mine was the most wonderful turn-on for me!  Bob was
everything I'd hoped for!  He barely fit into me!  The first times we
fucked, I just came and came, over and over.  But then afterward,
whatever we did, I came again every time I imagined you and Steve doing
the same things.  Bob couldn't understand it when I told him.  'That
lady was your husband?'  he kept saying.  'Do you go out together
often?  Why don't you make it with each other?  Are you both lesbians?'
The poor man was baffled."

"And Honey, there's more.  I wasn't going to tell you until tea time
later today, when we all tell each other what we did with our fellas.
But you might want to sleep on it now.  Next weekend we're all going
away for the whole weekend to a resort hotel in the mountains.  A
fabulous place, Pearl says, for singles of all ages to meet and have
fun.  Tennis, swimming, golf, new friends and companions, all four of
us enjoying ourselves.  We'll see what action we can arrange.  Doesn't
that sound wonderful?

"Or all three of us, Henry dear, if you'd rather stay home and watch
television.  But I think you'd have more fun with us.  You are one of
us, now, you know.  And if you come, we can share everything.  A whole
weekend!  Here I am, forty years old, and I'm looking forward to a
whole weekend, the start of a whole new life!"

"But I don't want to force you, Honey.  You think about it, and let me
know.  Even as late as next Wednesday.  That's when we'll need to phone
in all of our room reservations.  Don't worry about a thing!  I'll help
you shop for everything.  You'll need lots more pretty lingerie,
certainly, and tennis outfits, and some swim suits.  You do know you
can't go swimming topless any more ever, don't you?  And you'll need to
wear a really good brassiere all the time from now on, or those titties
of yours will start to sag down to your stomach.  Oh, and certainly
you'll need to buy a sheer dress or two for your little romantic
candlelight dinners.  To wear when we're back here in town, too.  It's
going to be such fun!"

Bea came closer, and now she put both her hands on my shoulders, and
looked me straight in the eyes.  I glanced down at her boots, and at
her thighs, and at her nipples poking through her silk blouse so close
to mine, but so much bigger than mine, and then I looked up into those
dark-streaked eyes of hers, and I couldn't look away.  They held me.
Her voice enchanted me.  "Honey," she said, "Please come with us.
Please, sweetheart.  You'll love it!  Do it for me!  I won't enjoy
myself at all as much, if I don't know that you're also enjoying
yourself.  I'm sure Pearl can fix you up with another guy you'd love to
be with.  Maybe even Steve again, if he's not busy.  Didn't you enjoy
Steve?  Wasn't he just right for you?"

"We have such wonderful years ahead of us, sharing our new lives, you
as my sweetest, dearest girlfriend as well as my loving, adorable
husband.  Now there's no need for us ever to separate, or get divorced,
or for you to feel you need to hunt up some trophy wife, the way
Pearl's husband did, to renew your life.  Last year, I knew you were
headed that way, toward taking on some younger woman who would help you
feel younger.  I could tell.  And I was so depressed that I might lose
you, and I felt so helpless to do anything about it.  You remember!  It
seemed only a matter of time.  Only last year!  But now, no trophy wife
would want you.  Not after what I've done to you.  And I don't know
that you'd want one of them either, now that you know how good it is to
be a woman in bed with a man.  Now you're really and truly one of us.
And you're mine."

"Oh, Honey, there are so many new places we'll visit, and so many new
men to get to know.  It's a whole new beginning.  Say you'll come with
us.  Do, please, say Yes.  Do sleep on it, and then say, Yes"

"But I'm terribly sleepy now.  Come, love, take off that slip, and slip
into a nightie, and let's just go to bed and hug each other.  Just the
two of us.  I do so want you to lick me to sleep.  I'm still wet with
Bob, and I know you'll love the way he tastes.  Oh, everything's going
to be so beautiful from now on.  You'll see."

End